


Caught Between a Brock And a Hard Place

by Nitrobot



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Escape, F/M, Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 09:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15603573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: As far as Ann knows, her former fiancé was found in the vaults of the Life Foundation, having replaced whatever he stole down there with the corpses of five employees. That's what they told her, at least. She wants to hear his side of the story.





	Caught Between a Brock And a Hard Place

**Author's Note:**

> 03/10/2018 EDIT: Movie is out, seen it, loved it, and now that I know what actually happens in it I went back and changed some minor details to better fit with it. It's not entirely canon accurate since that would require almost a complete overhaul, so just keep in mind this was written before it came out.

Ann Weying had been picturing this day for a long while, for years, even before they both fell apart. The day when Eddie Brock ended up somewhere he couldn’t lie, or slip, or swindle his way out of. Behind bars. Behind the two-way mirror she now watched him through.

When she focused past the dull ghost of her reflection, her scowl etched into the glass, she could see him holding his head, staring down at the table he was shackled to. His skin was white and ragged under the sheen of sweat. His hoodie was torn at the elbow, a mosaic of stains. Dirt, sweat, specks of what might have been blood… and not all of it his own. But she still didn’t want to believe that part of the story.

How long had they been keeping him here, until they finally let her down to save him from himself? Maybe a few hours. Maybe a whole day. She couldn’t tell. Over the last six months, Eddie had made a habit of looking like shit no matter what time it was. She was a lot more concerned by what kind of cell they’d locked him up in. Not a cell… more like some kind of chamber. A padded room, but with steel instead of cushioning.

“What the hell are those things on the walls?”

The guard, technician, whatever he was and whatever he did that required a lab coat, looked up from his computer only for a second. “Low frequency sound barriers, ma’am. It’s a psychological suppressant. Stops him from lashing out.”

“The handcuffs aren’t enough?” He didn’t answer her that time. When it came to their employees, the Life Foundation preferred the kind who didn’t talk any more than they absolutely had to. And only now was it starting to be a problem for her.

Ann turned back to the mirror, and watched Eddie’s buried face with a new perspective. The fingers clawing into his hair, through to his skull, relenting only to cover his eyes with his palms; the way his eyebrows knitted tightly together just above where the rest of his face was still shielded by his hands.

She’d seen that look more than a few times before, most often after… well, after the Daily Globe incident. When he hated what he was writing. When he moved the last of his stuff out. Whenever his father phoned. Always when he was trying to hide just how much he was hurting.

She couldn’t put it off any longer.

“I’m going in,” she announced. “Turn the barriers down.”

Another lab coat gave her a look like she’d just asked him to strip naked. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, Ms Weying.”

“Well, I can’t talk to him if he isn’t lucid.” Ann assumed the tone of voice that usually got her into places other people would rather she wasn’t in. She wasn’t surprised when it came out. She just never thought she’d be using it to see her ex fiancé.

“I understand that, ma’am, but it’s a safety risk we can’t take,” the lab coat insisted.

Ann scoffed, throwing out her arm to gesture towards Eddie still sitting there sweating and shivering in his skin. “You take one look at him and you honestly tell me that he’s any kind of risk to anyone,” she argued, partly to convince herself of it.

No one took her up on the offer. No one said anything at all, bar one anonymous mutter. “Lady, you have no idea…”

Before Ann could try and get an idea, she heard a blip from the direction of the cell door. The light above it was now a sickly green.

“The door will lock behind you,” she was told. “You’ll need to press the button beside it on the inside to get back out.”

Locked in a room with your ex. It was every woman’s dream come true(!). “And the barriers are off?” she pressed.

“They’re set as low as we can safely put them.”

That’d have to be good enough for her to work with, and good enough for Eddie to put up with.

But now, just a few feet away from him, she still felt like she was making a mistake. Just because it was her job, just because it was almost the right thing to do, it didn’t mean it was a _good_ thing to do. Not good for her. Maybe not even good for him. The fact that the Foundation was even giving her the chance to lessen his sentence was suspicious enough. She’d seen how they treated corporate spies, rogue employees, even janitors who just wandered in somewhere they shouldn’t have.

Maybe they hoped he’d crack under pressure from the right person. If so, they didn’t know Eddie Brock at all. She pushed her way through the door before she could start regretting it.

A low, constant hum assaulted her as she entered. Static in the air clung to her clothes. There was a chair opposite him, but she didn’t take it. Likewise, he didn’t look up. But he knew she was there. She could hear him wincing behind his palms. Her sigh was like a hiss in the cold, sterile cell.

“You told me you’d behave yourself.” She couldn’t see his eyes, but she was sure they were raw and lifeless. When he got in trouble, he always just pretended he was somewhere else so he wouldn’t have to deal with it. The bigger the trouble, the further away he would retreat. Right now, she imagined he was on the other side of the galaxy. Somehow he still managed to speak from so far away.

“What’re you doing here?” It was a half-dead groan whistling from between his fingers. He sounded like a teenager who’d just been caught by his parents coming home a lot earlier than he’d been expecting. In fact, that’s _exactly_ how he sounded when his father caught them both sneaking into Eddie’s room at the school night ridiculous time of 3AM and the tender age of eighteen. Ann convinced herself that she hadn’t noticed it.

“As far as you’re concerned, I’m your legal defense. The Life Foundation is suing you for damages, and they were gracious enough to let you have _any_ kind of defense against them.” She pulled the chair out, only to give herself room to spread out the folder of evidence she’d been pouring over for the last three hours, trying to find any flaw in it. CCTV pictures.  Fingerprints, hair, even his blood, all found at the crime scene. Photos of the guards he’d supposedly killed with a weapon that hadn’t been found yet. He didn’t flinch at the sight of any of them. He didn’t move at all, apart from the shivers. She could almost hear his bones rattling away in the cage of his sallow skin.

“What did they tell you?” he asked.

Ann didn’t know if she should answer that. But she did anyway. “That not only did you break into and trespass on private property, you _stole_ from them while you were in there.”

He pulled his hand from his face, the links of the chain hanging between them clinking softly.

And he finally looked at her with dry, bloodshot, pleading eyes. “Did they tell you what it was?”

“Are you admitting that you stole from them?” she fired back. Eddie was many things, but he wasn’t stupid enough to answer. Ann seated herself at last, leaning over the mounds of evidence that told her she should stay away from him, not lean in closer like she did.

“Eddie, these are dangerous, _powerful_ people.” She lowered her voice, knowing they’d be listening in somehow. “Do you even know half of what they’re charging you with?”

He stayed silent. She pulled across the profiles of the employees found dead when he was captured, placing them between her and him. A whole gallery of guilt. “Do you know they’re saying you _killed_ these guards?”

He looked at them, but from his safe distance with a blank glaze over his eyes, from somewhere far beyond this cell. His mouth twitched, too fast for her to tell if it was a grimace or smile. A fucking _smile_?! Ann slammed her hand on the table, making him jump. A flash of fear rippled across his face, the first break she’d seen in his mask. She dug herself deeper into it, forcing his full attention on her by filling his line of sight.

“Eddie, look at me.” Each word was stamped hard into him, like she was lecturing a child.  “They are charging you with, at _least,_ five counts of _murder_ -!”

“I didn’t kill them.” He looked away, her glare too much for him to take. But even with looking so guilty, he still had the nerve to try and defend himself. Still had the nerve to turn her own kind of glare against her, the red in his eyes almost  throbbing. He pressed his lips together and jabbed a finger over her shoulder, towards the mirrored wall.

“I didn’t kill _anyone_ ,” he repeated, “and _they_ have no proof that I did.”

He was actually right about that, but Ann wasn’t about to let him know.

“How are you so sure?” She hated using the condescending tone, but it was the only way to get something out of him. Something she’d learned in the final months of their marriage; even anger was better than nothing at all. And the anger did swell, an undercurrent of red flushing through his skin like a flash of fever.

“I wouldn’t be here if they did,” Eddie argued. “ _You_ wouldn’t be here.” He exhaled, a gurgling sound emerging from deep in his chest. Like bile churning at the back of his throat. “You know why I’m really here, Ann? Cause they… _want_ something from me. Something I can’t give them.”

He said it the same way he might describe a new story, a bigger picture pieced together from whatever tiny details he’d managed to uncover. The same way as his many desperate attempts to salvage his reputation. And, like with all the other times before, she was forced to pity him.

“You have to, Eddie. Whatever you took from them, just… tell them where it is. They’ll lessen your sentence if you do.”

Eddie closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. “They already know where it is.”

He had always been stubborn, though he had called it determination. They _had_ to graduate before the proposal, they _had_ to have the perfect wedding, he _had_ to follow the story to the source. And some men just never changed, not even when they were facing the end of their lives. Ann sighed and pulled away from him, leaving him to sweat on his own.

“I’m trying to help you, believe it or not. If you don’t give me something to work with, something to get them to back down, they can and _will_ lock you up for the rest of your life.”

“If you let them do that,” he said, “it won’t be for as long as you think it’ll be.” It wasn’t a quip, not a drop of black humour softened by a smirk. He was serious. Ann felt herself gulp, a bitter taste starting to seep into the back of her throat. She risked a glance over her shoulder, trying to gauge how much of him she could hide with her back. She bowed her head so her mouth couldn’t be seen moving by any cameras in the corners.

“...What is it, Eddie?” she whispered. “What did you take from them?”

“If I tell you,” he whispered back, more like a hiss, “it’ll kill you.”

Ann almost rolled her eyes. “They won’t get me that easily.”

“Not them. _It_.”

Did… did he just growl at her? The uncertainty was all that stopped her from flinching away. And he’d stopped shaking. In fact, he’d stopped some time ago. With her being so close up, she just hadn’t noticed until now.

“It’s alright to be scared, Ann,” Eddie told her, still whispering, still trying to make her think there was nothing wrong with him. “I’m scared, too.”

“I’m _not_ scared-”

“You are,” he insisted. “We can taste it.”

Ann blinked, shook her head, doing everything except thinking of what to respond with. What on Earth were you _supposed_ to say to something like that? What had they done to him?

Eddie’s head perked up suddenly. The swollen vessels in his eyes seemed to dance as they darted from left to right, scanning for something neither of them could see. Then he exhaled, sharply.

“I need you to listen to me, Annie.” He reached across the table, emphasizing his plea with gestures from his twitching hand. “In the next fifteen seconds, someone’s gonna come in. When that door opens… I need to you to duck.”

Ann looked down at his outstretched arm, still shaking her head. “Whatever you’re planning, Eddie, don’t do it-”

“It’s not my plan,” Eddie said. “And I can’t stop it from happening. That’s why we _need_ you to duck.”

He was begging her to listen, the desperation soaked into his stare. Now she was ready to admit she was scared; scared of what he was going to do, what he might have already done despite it going against everything she knew, everything she _thought_ she knew about him. But one thing terrified and confused her above anything else.

“...Who’s ‘we’?”

He opened his mouth, and out came a click of hinges. The door opening behind her. Eddie looking over her shoulder, only for a second, before snapping back to her. Begging. Please, _please_ listen to him-

“Ms Weying-”

Ann ducked. Something soared over her head, a whistle of air followed by a harsh crash. Shouting, frantic yelling, more sounds of destruction. Gasps. Cries of pain. A sharp stench of copper, something sickly she couldn’t recognise. All she could see was her shoes under the table… and red on the floor, slowly leaking into view.

“Eddie…?” She raised her head cautiously, finding the seat in front of her empty. The dark red on the floor pooling, creeping towards her. She stood, almost tripping over the chair legs as she jumped up, and turned around.

Eddie stood in the open doorway of the cell, black slime encasing his left arm, turning it into some kind of tendril. It stretched out of the door, towards the man he had pinned against the far wall. She recognised him, the one who told her that the barriers shouldn’t be turned down. His eyes bulged from their sockets, watching Eddie hold him up with blind shock. The black over him glistened under the harsh lights, matching the sheen of sweat across Eddie’s exhausted face. He could barely look at Ann, but he forced himself to.

“I’m so sorry about this, Annie.” The black pulled, no, _yanked_ itself back into his arm, coating it thickly in ooze. Over his shoulder, the man against the wall fell down into a pile of broken bones on the floor. His chest cavity was carved out by a gaping hole, from the jagged end of Eddie’s arm. Blood dripped from it as it sagged adding to the puddle of red under him. From the body at his feet. The white lab coat soaked in blood. The eyes lifeless. Jaw slack, almost torn off. Where was his tongue? Oh God, where was the _rest_ of him?!

“You… y-you _killed_ them-!” Ann gagged before she could go on. She tried to step backwards, colliding into the table, fumbling with the edge as she retreated behind it. If he came near her, if he moved at all, she’d flip it onto him. Grab one of the chairs. Distract him to get to the door… she couldn’t stop gasping. Gagging. Hyperventilating, only flooding her nostrils more with the stench of blood and gore and things she didn’t want to think about.

“They’d have killed us if we didn’t,” Eddie told her, as if that was supposed to justify it. “They still will, if we don’t get out of here.”

He was a murderer. He was insane. Oh God, she was next. She had to get out, call the guards. Where _was_ everyone?!

“Ann, we need to go.” He was going for her arm, with the same hand he’d slaughtered with, the same one she’d seen swollen with black-

“Get away from me!” She was against the wall, squashed against it, trying to edge her way to the door as he closed in on her.

“Annie, please, we don’t have time! We-!” He stopped in his tracks, his eyes darting quickly to his left. Then he swore.

“Ah, fuck it.” His arm flooded with the black that seemed to come from nowhere, and before Ann could fight back against it he was grabbing her waist, pulling her towards him, weightless and kicking as she was hauled over his shoulder, drawn into the ooze swarming over his body.

“Put me _down_ , Eddie!” She tried to slam her fists into his back, but her hands only sank into the slime. “I’m fucking serious-!”

“So are we,” Eddie cut in. “We’re seriously sorry about this.”

Ann’s mouth was open, but nothing else came out of it. Her lips felt warm, wet… a black gag plastered over them. Her vocal cords burned, but the ooze absorbed all her cries for help. The floor beneath her was slipping past her, the blood spilled over it tracking in his footsteps- so much blood, _how was there so much blood?!_

“Hold it!” A hoarse yell from behind her, in front of Eddie. They were in the corridor outside the holding cell, Ann could tell from the floor tiles. Eddie stopped, leaving her hanging squirming over his shoulder. Vibrations rumbled through her bones from somewhere deep within him. A snarl.

“Release Ms. Weying immediately, Brock, or we will use lethal force!”

The binding around her tightened, squeezing her organs. He wasn’t going to let her go. He wasn’t ready to three years ago, and he wasn’t any more ready to now. He made his decision known with another snarl.

“Line up the sonics!”

Ann didn’t see what happened next. She only felt the ooze shifting beneath her, huge fluid muscles tensing and flexing and sloughing off before snapping back into place. Heard the screams, the roaring in her ears that left them ringing, the splatter and gurgle of throats being torn out and spilled across the walls. She crushed her eyes beneath their lids, fighting back tears of absolute terror. This wasn’t happening. Whatever this was, whatever _he_ was, it wasn’t happening. She was doing exactly what he always did; escaping. Retreating somewhere where she didn’t have to face whatever came next.

Block out the screams. Block out the stench of death. Block out the knowledge that your ex husband was slaughtering people. She did it so well that she didn’t notice someone grabbing for her until she heard them collide through a wall on what she thought was her left.

“ **Don’t you fucking touch her!”**

That voice. It couldn’t have been Eddie speaking, it was… like an abyss. Full of growling, roiling darkness, like sandpaper furiously flaying across vocal cords. But it must have been. She felt it rumble around her, through her oozing cage. She retreated further into it, not knowing where else to go. Not knowing how to make it all be over.

When the painful tears reached her cheeks, she heard nothing. Nothing but a feral beast’s panting ragged breaths, pushing her up and down on its back. Then they were moving again, and her ex husband returned from the abyss.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, I didn’t want you to see this, I’m sorry…” It was like a mantra that Eddie chanted over and over, in step with his hurried march to God-knows-where with her. Ann had given up on struggling. Her muffled screams had devolved into keening whines, the only way to stop herself hyperventilating and choking on the goo sealed over her mouth. Her eyes fluttered open, blinking away the glaze of tears, and she found herself face to face with him as he pulled her down off his shoulder. He looked even worse than before, but there was no black taking over his pale skin now. The only trace of it left was around her limbs and on her lips, still keeping her gagged.

“I’m gonna let your mouth go, okay?” he said quietly. “Please don’t scream.”

She made no sign that she’d obey, but he did as he said he would. As the slime melted away, she yanked her mouth open and sucked in air deeply. For his sake, she swallowed the rest of her outrage only for it to come whistling out from her tight throat, from between her clenched teeth as she struggled anew against her restraints.

“Eddie, what the fuck is going on here?! What is _wrong_ with you?!” The wall at her back was cold, the humming light overhead burning her retinas. They were in some kind of closet, hidden behind a barrier of blank glass flasks on heavy shelves. They rattled together as Eddie tried to soothe her wild thrashing.

“Annie, please… please just calm down. We’ll explain everything, we swear!” He released her arms from the ooze, but seized them again with his own. A hard grip on her wrists, his thumbs digging into her pounding pulse, trying to force it to ease. Somehow, it worked. Ann stopped fighting, though she still shivered as Eddie finally released her fully. She stood there, paralysed, as he licked his lips and bowed his head, holding onto her shoulders. She could feel his whole weight pressing down on her, not to keep her rooted there but to keep himself standing. Ann was half expecting to see black start to ooze from between his fingers, but it never came.

“...I was right about them.” When he raised his head, he didn’t look happy about it. “I was right all along. About Carlton Drake, about what they’ve been doing here. But it’s even worse than I thought.” He stepped back, letting go of her shoulders to press his palms into his eyes, rubbing them up into his damp hair.

“You’re not gonna believe me at first, but please just listen. They’ve got…” he sighed, “ _aliens_ here, called symbiotes.” He spoke slowly, making completely sure Ann was paying attention. She was, but she didn’t yet comprehend what was coming out of him. He went on, unable to sate her confusion without first making it even worse.

“Drake’s been hiding these symbiotes, and forcing them into people to make them into monsters. And they put one of them in me. Then they found out that they can’t control the one inside me, and now they want it back. So they can put it in someone else who _can’t_ resist it. You understand? I’m the _only_ one that can stop this thing killing the whole city, maybe even the whole planet. I’m the only one who can stop _them.”_

He was looking at her, locked onto her eyes, but she couldn’t return a gaze as intense as his. Couldn’t even support her own weight without the wall at her back. Aliens, experiments, _monsters_ … that’s what the slime was? That’s what made him kill? It was the only way she could accept Eddie as a murder, but it was so unbelievable that she just _couldn’t_ accept it.

“I… I-I can’t… why?” She pressed a hand into her head, feeling her brain throb under her fingers. “It makes no _fucking_ sense, why-?!”

“Because they think this is what humans are supposed to be,” Eddie told her. “They think the symbiotes are supposed to evolve us, and they don’t care who they have to hurt to get it to happen. Annie, look at us.”

He was inches away from her face. She looked, and found black eyes staring at her. They went away when he blinked a second later, but she knew what she’d just seen.

“They only let you in there with us,” Eddie said, “because they were hoping we’d kill you. You’re a loose end to them. And if I killed you, we’d… I’d… we would separate. They want my symbiote, Annie. That’s all Drake and this goddamn foundation cares about. They want to hurt it, to hurt innocent people, and we _can’t let that happen_.”

He sounded manic, desperation forcing his determined plea through a presser that left his voice cracked from the effort of making itself heard, from praying that Ann would hear him and understand and nod along- yes, yes, Eddie, you’re doing the right thing. You’ve finally found your dragon to slay, your demons to overcome, your path to becoming a white knight of the people.

This time, though, she couldn’t. Even if he was right all along, even if he was now the victim of his own story, even if he was telling the truth, Ann couldn’t overlook the one thing he’d lied about.

“You said… you said you _didn’t_ kill anyone.”

Eddie sighed, rubbing at his tired face. “I didn’t. _We_ did. We… we had to.” He faced the door, leaning against it, almost collapsing. All so he wouldn’t have to look at her while he lied.

“You never _have_ to _kill_ someone, Eddie-!”

**“We are not Eddie…”**

The snarl, ripping its way out of his throat. The abyss rising up again, and the darkness came with it. It lapped at his legs, shining and viscous and crawling up his body, encasing him in a thick shell of goo that pulled him up and deeper into itself, so tall that he hit the ceiling, so wide that he bowled over shelves just by standing there. White veins spidering across the shimmering surface, leaking into his thick, monstrous skin. His back was bowed under his own hulking weight, and when he turned… when he faced her…

She’d never been very religious, not like he’d been raised, but in that moment she was certain she was looking at the devil.

 **“We… are… Venom.** ” He had no eyes; only whites swimming in the black sea, narrowing as they watched her, and jagged teeth dripping drool as his mouth unhinged with each word. Like a snake’s jaw, about to devour something in a single bite. **“And we need you to trust us.”**

Ann gasped, the only sound she could possibly make. She was so absorbed, so transfixed by the rest of him that she hadn’t noticed his arm going towards her. His hand, easily as big as her head, beckoned to her with its talons. Each breath he took was a low hiss, the ambience of a predator.

 **“We can get you out of here,”** the monster promised, coring her bones with its deep growl. **“We can protect you. But only if you let us.”**

Only if she let him.

_“I will stay by your side until I leave this Earth,” he had said a lifetime ago, kneeling before her with the engagement ring in his hand, its jewel almost as bright as his eyes, “and I will love and cherish you for long after that. If you’ll let me.”_

This monster… it really was Eddie. And he was closer to the man she’d fallen in love with than she ever remembered him being.

She just wished it didn’t take a massacre for her to find him again.

Her hand was engulfed by his claws, the black slime warm as it oozed into the cracks of her palm. He squeezed, only a fraction of his true strength that almost crushed her fingers. Only almost. He knew exactly how much force to use to prove that he was in control. Protective. Possessive. The alien, the symbiote, whatever it was, it only amplified him as he’d always been. He’d always been stubborn. Always trying to find a way to become something better, bigger than he really was. He’d found one once before, and it had almost killed him. Now that he’d found another one, it was killing everyone else.

If she was going to trust him to not become the kind of monster he had inside him, she had to have a contingency in place. A backup, not for herself, but for the rest of the planet.

“Just answer me this, Eddie… how would killing me separate you from it?”

He watched her for a moment, before his face melted. The black fell away, the whites rolling back behind his head, as Eddie was revealed. Teeth embedded in the slime framed his face like shards of broken glass, giving him the look of a devoured man. He didn’t look like he was in pain. In fact, he almost smiled at her. And, once again, he only told her the truth.

“Because I can’t let it hurt someone I love.”  
Ann filed that knowledge away as he opened the closet door, and prayed that she’d never have to use it against him.


End file.
